2 Lucinda Williams

Essence LOST HIGHWAY 2001, £10

You say: “A smouldering little gem.” Alex Tobin, via Twitter

“I feel this is kind of a woman’s record,” Williams told MOJO at one point during the three years between Car Wheels On

A Gravel Road and its highlyanticipated follow-up. “It’s more of a mature record. Love songs and lust songs.” As she had done with Lucinda

Williams, she wrote them immediately and quickly in the aftermath of another romantic break-up. Her template, she said, was Dylan’s Time Out Of

Mind, for its relative quiet simplicity. Two Dylan sidemen, Charlie Sexton and Tony Garnier, join a line-up that includes Ryan Adams and Jim Lauderdale. The subtle, nuanced band and her upfront, yearning, achingly vulnerable voice single this out among some of her more hard rocking albums. A beauty.